So how do you stay cool, sane, and pleasant to be around each day without having to dread opening up the utility bill every month? It's easy, not necessarily fun, but easy.
It doesn't matter if you are on a rate plan with your utility company or not. These simple reminders and tips will help no matter if you are on normal service or on a demand service.
1. Be aware of your electric usage throughout the day. In the summers the biggest usage is mainly your air conditioning, however I'm sure you find smaller drains on your power around the house.
- Are you the type of person who leaves the computer on all day every day regardless of its use? If you are then your not only paying premium rates during the day time keeping it on, but the heat that a computer puts out makes your room hotter and the a/c running more. I myself shut my computer off by noon every day and do not turn it on until at least 5 or 6pm once the sun has started to go down. I also keep my computer and all it's components on two different power strips, one that always remains on (i.e. Internet, wireless, router, etc.) and one that I use as a kill strip. The kills strip has my computer, monitors, printer, and much more plugged into it and when I'm done using the computer I shut off power to that power strip which is located conveniently on my desk. No only is all the heat producing equipment off, but it's not using any phantom energy either.
- Still using conventional light bulbs? STOP! Sure they are cheap to buy but they cost so much money to cool - that's right cool. If you stand close to a standard light bulb in any particular lamp you'll notice the extreme heat that radiates from them. You're not only paying to light that bulb, but you're paying to cool the room that that bulb is in. For example when we bought our new house last year the only room that had a CFL light bulb in it was the garage. It took us a few weeks to get around changing out most of the standard bulbs to CFL's, but after we did and got our electric bill it was a shock, it was over $400 that month! Sure it was summer and we are now cooling more square footage, but it's not like we're out of control with our electric usage. The next bill that came went down about $100 and it was the hottest month of the season too! I know that changing out the light bulbs was the biggest contributing factor for the decrease in our bill.
2. Set your AC and forget it!
- If you don't have a programmable thermostat call your favorite handyman ("Oh Honey!") to install one. Not only will you get a better read on the actual temperature in the house, but you'll be able to set it at different times of the day depending on your needs. If you work you can set it to where it's a few degrees warmer while you're gone, but is cooled down before you get home. If you stay at home during the day you can still benefit by working with your utility rate plans and setting the temperatures accordingly.
- I'm home all day practically every day, therefore I don't want to feel overly hot just to save money. I get crabby, the kids get crabby, it just makes for a happier family if we're comfortable - for the most part. I have 4 zones on my thermostat and I subscribe to the noon - 7pm demand rate from my utility company. So at noon I have that thermostat set at 83-degrees, it goes down to 80-degrees at 7pm when the rates are cheaper. At 9pm, when I'm hoping to be off to bed I have it set for 79-degrees just to cool it off a bit more for sleeping. At 5am, before we all get up it resets itself to 81-degrees because it's early in the day and the sun isn't beating down on our roof. Sound horrid? It's not really, we have ceiling fans going in every room and we recently purchased a skinny stand fan for the kitchen. I don't need goose-bumps to be comfortable and the only time where we are a bit crabby is around 3pm when the sun is coming around to our living side of the house. It lasts only a few hours, but the fans are a big help and I know not to expect much activity from me or the kiddos at that time of the day.
3. Don't Cook!
- Well, don't cook indoors really. We all have to eat right and dinner is usually the worst for us all in the summer because of the heat all those appliances kick out. So once it hits 100-degrees outside, I don't cook much inside and the oven is on strike until it's back in the 90's. How do I do it? I cook outside as much as possible. Now I don't know how to use our BBQ-grill, but I have other appliances that I don't mind taking outside to the patio or to the garage.
- Pull out that crock-pot! It's not just for soups, stews, and chili's anymore. If you don't have one already, get a crock-pot cookbook. My favorites are from Sandra Lee from the Food Network channel and the Fix-It and Forget-It Cookbook.
- Get yourself a NESCO roaster! A NESCO roaster is a basically a cross between a crockpot and an oven. You can cook a whole chicken and have the skin crispy (whereas you can't get crispy skin in a crockpot). You can cook casseroles, meatloafs, even bread and deserts in one. Anything you can do in an oven you can basically do in a roaster just as long as it fits in the cooking well.
- If you find that you just have to turn your oven on, don't turn the big one on! Get a toaster oven/convection oven. Sure it'll still produce heat in the kitchen, but because it's a smaller oven it doesn't take that long (if at all) to preheat and the heat dissipates quicker because again, it's smaller than that big box oven you have! The toaster oven combos today have all the bells and whistles as regular sized range/ovens have. I can broil, bake, and fan bake (convection cooking that cooks your foods faster). I can even fit a frozen pizza in mine which is a must with my kiddos!
- It's considered a kitchen appliance but you mostly will find them in the garage. I'm talking about those freezers (or second fridge/freezers). I applaud anyone who is willing to spend the money to run a freezer in an Phoenix garage during the summer. Sure they'll still keep your food frozen, but they'll run all the time and I believe that causes many freezers to die well before their time. I know people who clean out their freezers before each summer and turn them off until September/October when it starts cooling off. If that's an option for you then great, however it's not for me. I have a huge chest freezer and it's sitting in my living room behind my couch. Sure it isn't the most pretty thing to look at, but it's conveniently located near the kitchen and it hardly cycles on at all.
4. Cover those windows!
- I'm a native Arizonian and I know that the first thing you do when you buy a new home is to have dark sun screens put on all the windows. Today's sunscreens repel even more UV sunlight (we just have 90% put on our house) and you'll be able to walk past your windows without being toppled over by the heat that radiates through them.
- The biggest lost of energy that any home has (considering you don't keep your doors and windows open all day in the summer) is through open blinds and shades so pull the shades and draw the blinds. Sure you want to see your newly landscaped yard, but not if it means that you can cook an egg on the glass. If you're home and must have the blinds open then at least be aware enough of the sun as it travels over your house. I have some blinds open for light on the west side of my house for most of the day, but once that sun starts coming coming over the roof then I make sure they are completely tilted closed.
5. Don't work up a sweat!
- Do all your "hard labor chores" (as I like to call them) during the morning or late evening hours. This means running your washer and dryer, dishwasher, vacuum, ironing, anything that produces heat. If it can wait don't do it during the heat of the day.
- I know that the television is another one of those big energy draws in the house, but hey you've got to have a vice right? Even though I don't have cable I do like to be able to watch a movie in the afternoon with the kiddos or maybe catch the news. However when I'm done the TV, DVD player, and digital converter box all get turned off. (Household Hint: If you ever drop an electronic gadget in water immediately dry it off, remove batteries and memory cards and place it all on your cable/converter box for a few days. There is so much heat radiating off those boxes that it'll dry off your gadget and you'll most likely save it - - - just don't turn it on before it's completely dry!)
So there are my 5 tips for being comfortable in the summer and not having to spend an arm and a leg to pay the utility company. Sure there are more ways to save on energy costs, but most of these are no to low cost solutions that you can put in effect today.
If you want more ideas go to your utility company's website, most have sections devoted to saving energy. Also if you want to see your utility usage each month go to your utility company's website and/or give them a call to get a break down. Most meters in Arizona have been converted or will be converted to meters that automatically report your energy usage. So rather than a meter reader coming out to your home each month, the information is sent to the utility company instead.
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